3D-Printing News – Latest Headlines

NASA has successfully tested the most complex rocket engine parts ever designed by the agency and printed with additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, on a test stand at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

MakerBot and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory teamed up to challenge the 3D printing and design community to come up with designs for a Thingiverse Mars Base that could theoretically support human life on the Red Planet.

Using 3-D printing and advanced geometry, a team at Cornell has developed a new kind of building material - interlocking ceramic bricks that are lightweight, need no mortar and make efficient use of materials.

3D printing has just opened up a whole new world for visually impaired children. The Tactile Picture Book Project has found a way to adapt children's illustrations into 3D designs so that they can follow along the text.

Economically viable and reliable building systems and tool sets are being sought, examined and tested for extraterrestrial infrastructure buildup. One NASA project focuses on a unique architecture weaving the robotic building construction technology with designs for assisting rapid buildup of initial operational capability Lunar and Martian bases.

This updated Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) has been produced by the AM Sub-Platform, as an update to the previous Additive Manufacturing (AM) SRAs produced and to highlight priority areas for future development.

New technology has been developed to make tactile objects with ease thanks to the convergence technology of 3D printing and 3D thermal reflow treatment. Using the technology, not only braille books, but also braille picture books and teaching materials can be made with greater flexibility in color, height and size.